What Happened to the People of this
Early Civilization in the Indus Valley?

The presence of ancient dams shows that
flooding was a problem, just as it was in
ancient Sumer as evidenced by the so-called
"flood layer" which Woolley incorrectly
believed represented the flood of Noah's
time. (He believed in the "local-flood"
theory, not the universal flood of the Bible).
All delta regions are subject to flooding,
some more than others- this is dependant
upon the source of the river involved. The
Indus begins in the Himalayas where in the
spring, the melting snows can cause severe
flooding. The evidence shown by the rebuilding after each flood indicates the most likely cause of
their disappearance. "... it seems likely that the people had simply exhausted the timber available
from the great forests that once had surrounded them. Earlier, Mohenjo-Daro had been flooded
at least three times, and each time they had simply rebuilt the city over the mud left by the
waters. But their building materials were timber and baked brick, and more timber was needed
to fire the huge quantities of bricks used in the city. Without wood at a reasonable distance,
repairs and rebuilding were neglected. Later dwellings are jerry-built and the spacious houses of
the great period were often divided." (LO, p. 79).

Evidence of contact between the Indus Valley and Sumer disappears suddenly, which indicates
that something happened to the actual civilization itself. The later occupation levels of the rebuilt
cities indicate that they simply left the region when they had exploited the natural resources and
turned the region into a desert.

Cuneiform records found in Sumer mention a land called
"Meluhha" from which came gold, ivory, carnelian and
lapis-lazuli. These have long been exports of India and we
know the beads of gold and ivory from the Indus Valley were
found in ancient Sumer. Could this "Meluhha" be the Indus
Valley? In one of the Vedic (Indian) hymns the "Mleccha" are
mentioned as the people that the Aryans, who took over the
region much later, conquered. This may be further confirmed
by a discovery made in Mohenjo-Daro in the last occupation
level: "In 1925 and 1926, Vats and Hargreaves were
fortunate to exhume several corpses from the ruins of a
house. The convulsive and painful positions they were found
in showed that they had died a violent death. There was a
group of fourteen of these skeletons in one room, and another
group of six in a road, some of which are decapitated. The
most moving is undoubtedly that of a woman who had fallen
head first down a stairway which led to a well below the
street. Mr. Wheeler found a group of skeletons of men,
women and children in the ruins of the citadel, exhumed in
1946, probably belonging to the same family. This was probably a family of ivory sculptors,
because two elephant tusks were discovered near the corpses. The man had carried them away in
his flight,... After the fall of the citadel, the invaders stripped the fugitives of all their possessions
and killed them, but they left the tusks behind." (WA, vol 1., p. 116). The fact that so few people
were in the city during this attack is further confirmation that the majority of the population had
long since deserted the area. All evidence of trade had ceased. Then, the Aryans took over the
region. It appears that when they attacked, there were but a very few still in the cities at that time,
as evidenced by the small number of skeletons found in this last occupation level.

A Mystery Solved

The archaeologists and scholars tell the tale themselves, of this civilization that seemingly "came
from nowhere": "A civilization as complex as that of the Indus Valley does not spring full-blown
out of nowhere. But that is exactly what appears to have happened at Mohenjo-Daro and
Harappa. They are cities built from scratch. The archaeologists of the future will have to account
for this mysterious improbable breakthrough of civilization in the Indus Valley, circa 2500 B.C."
(ED, p. 107). Well, the answer to this mystery is simple, and in fact, the ONLY answer. The
pieces of the puzzle of mankind will never fit except in the context of the Biblical account.